Grilled Pork Chops with Pineapple

I was so excited yesterday to see that Kroger had boneless pork loin chops on sale for $1.88 per pound. This is one of my favorite meals to cook as all three of my children actually like it, and it involves little effort from me. (A definite win-win situation in my house!)

Normally I use one of the seasoning packets from Weber Grill Creations pictured below. If you clip coupons, you can pick up one of these envelopes for free with double coupons. But, even if you pay full price, it is less than a dollar and the taste is really great.

This time, I wanted to try and duplicate the results I get with seasoning mix with a home-made recipe.

The package in the picture shows 3.88 lbs of pork chops. I did not use all of these chops. I used 7 of them and put the other 2 in a bag for later use. Not shown in the picture is the can of pineapple rings that I bought on sale a few weeks ago for 50 cents per can. Including the cost of the wine and olive oil, I estimate this dinner to cost $7.50 and fed our family of 5 easily.

You will need:
1/4 cup white wine (I used Chardonnay)
1/4 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons Italian Seasoning
2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flake
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 lbs. pork loin chops (boneless)
1 can pineapple rings

First, mix the white wine, olive oil, seasonings, salt, and lemon juice in a measuring cup and whisk together using a fork or small whisk. Place pork chops in a zipper bag and pour the marinade over the chops. Seal bag and place in the fridge to marinade for at least 2 hours.

What I did next is heat up the indoor grill on medium high heat. (I use a George Foreman, but you could just as easily use a grill pan on the stove or an outdoor grill.) After it has had 4-5 minutes to heat up, I added the pork chops and closed the grill. After 4 minutes, I opened the grill and rearranged since the chops closest to the hinge on my grill cook faster than the rest of the areas. Another 4 minutes and I did another quick rearrange. Then I let the chops cook for just another minute or two more. You want to remove them from the grill when you see grill marks on the chops and they are still a little bit pink when you cut into them. They will continue to cook internally as you let them rest for a few minutes.

After giving my daughter a quick taste test of the pineapple in the can, I added the rings to the grill to cook for 4 minutes so that they were heated all the way through. If I had done this on the outdoor grill, they likely would have had some beautiful char marks as well. (But, I prefer the indoor grill for the ease of cleaning.) Remove the pineapple when they are heated all the way through and cut into bite sized pieces.

The taste on these pork chops was especially yummy if you add a small bite of pineapple to every bite of pork chop on your fork. Unfortonately, my youngest is sick today, and he has refused to eat anything other than a peanut butter sandwich, but my 9 year old thought these chops were DE-licious, but she doesn't care for the pineapple. So, she had her serving sans pineapple.

NOTE: Be sure that you are using KOSHER salt when you measure. If you use table salt, you wont want to use nearly as much salt at the crystals are much smaller and take up about 1/3 the space.